No, it’s not the same. Firedragon users have a different default. I’ll repeat the question that you didn’t answer yet:
“would a search engine be willing to pay Mozilla to have them be a default search engine if it (upstream Firefox) had no users?”
And this is just an example. There are many other forms of partnership possible beyond search engines… the point is that the number of users that actually are exposed to the default browser settings (ie. the ones using upstream Firefox, whether they change the settings or not) does give some leverage for making funds out of, while still giving options/freedom to the users who can freely change the setting.
No, it’s not the same. Firedragon users have a different default. I’ll repeat the question that you didn’t answer yet:
“would a search engine be willing to pay Mozilla to have them be a default search engine if it (upstream Firefox) had no users?”
And this is just an example. There are many other forms of partnership possible beyond search engines… the point is that the number of users that actually are exposed to the default browser settings (ie. the ones using upstream Firefox, whether they change the settings or not) does give some leverage for making funds out of, while still giving options/freedom to the users who can freely change the setting.